4/13/14

On Self-Respect

In her logical yet dramatic essay, On Self-Respect, Joan Didion includes a personal anecdote,
the perspective of both sides, the benefits of having self-respect, and what its like without self-respect
to define what she believes self-respect means in order to encourage her readers to live their life not
worrying about how they represent themselves to others, instead, building their own character and
confidence.
Didion begins her piece about self-respect by showing that her experience with rejection ended
her innocence. She uses a personal anecdote to appeal to her audience who has faced an issue like hers
or faced a rejection from something or someone they were fond of. She admits that she lost something
of hers when she did not make Phi Beta Kappa (215). She shares her own personal experience in order
to make a connection with her audience and bravely admit that she too had faced a difficult time. Our
author adopts a defeated yet hopeful tone that helps her readers feel like one downfall isnt the end of
the world. By doing this, she expects that her audience is able to move forward with life even after a
hardship.
Didion shifts her beginning focus of a personal anecdote to showing her readers the perspective
of both sides. She compares what its like to have self-respect and to lack self-respect. She does this in
order to persuade her readers that it isnt a good thing to worry about others judgments of them.
Didion also compares the two sides to show how itd be without and with it. This sways her audience to
the side she wants them to choose: to have self-respect for themselves which means, in her words, to
know the price of things (216). To know the price of things is to be able to appreciate everything and
anything even if it doesnt last long. Didion defines self-respect as, a certain discipline, the sense that
one lives by doing things one does not particularly want to do, by putting fears and doubts to one side,
by weighing immediate comforts against the possibility of larger, even intangible, comforts (217). She
wants to show her readers that self-respect allows them to reach their definition of happiness and be
true to themselves. Didion does this by advising her readers to try new things in life, even if theyre
uncomfortable because we never know what wed enjoy if we dont try everything at least once. She
also advises us to be open to new things because thatll lead us to happiness and knowing who we are.
Didion believes that to lack self-respect will cause us to live in regret because we are not living up to
who we truly are as a person but living as someone else. She says, However long we postpone it we
eventually lie down alone in the notoriously uncomfortable bed, the one we make ourselves. Whether
or not we sleep in it depends, of course, on whether we respect ourselves (216). The bed we make
ourselves is used as a metaphor for whether or not we have self-respect. Didion makes it clear that it is
in our hands to sleep in peace or not because we are the only ones who can make our bed comfortable,
which would mean respecting ourselves, or uncomfortable, which would mean not respecting ourselves.
After giving her audience an insight of both sides, she further demonstrates the benefits of self-
respect. She refers to a Great Gatsby character, Jordan Baker in order to convince her audience that
having self-respect builds character and confidence, making her persuasion stronger. The Great Gatsby
is a famous book most people can relate to therefore, when she refers to it, she gains credibility and
agreement with her audience which also makes them listen to what she has to say about self-respect.
She lists the specific characteristics and actions of self-respect, relating it to Jordan Baker, who has
respect for herself. This part of her essay is an example of how one doesnt care for their reputation that
one sees of them. Didion states that, characterthe willingness to accept responsibility for ones own
lifeis the source from which self-respect springs, which shows what Didion believed self-respect to
be, not that an individual has to worry about how others view them as, but as a person who can fight for
who they want to be (216).
Finally, Didion closes her essay by strongly and clearly stating her thoughts of how its like with
no self-respect at all. She says, self-respect is potentially to have everything: the ability to
discriminate, to love and to remain indifferent. To lack it is to be locked within oneself, paradoxically
incapable of either love or indifference (218). At first, she says that self-respect allows you to do things
with no worries, and then she changes to how it is to live with no self-respect. Her dramatic tone at the
end of the quote brings her reader to think twice about what theyd rather have. It gives them a sort of
image in their head, maybe of a free bird or locked bird, hiding within themselves and living in lies and
no strength to be themselves which appeals to her readers emotions. She does this to show what it may
be like if they lose respect and command to societys orders and expectations.
In Joan Didions essay, On Self-Respect, she shows us what she interprets what self-respect is,
encouraging her audience to live the way they want to. By doing this, theyre able to take their own
responsibilities and actions. They are also able to live life to the fullest and feel free of everything.